LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
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SPEECH 



OF 



. CHANDLER BALL, 



OF RENSSELAER COUNTY, 



DELIVERED AT 



H O (> S I (J K FALLS 



APRIL 2^, 1861. 



TROY, N . Y . : 

FPniVI THE STEAM PRESSES OK THE DAILY WHIG, CCXIII RIVKU STHKKT. 

1861. 



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SPEECH 



Mr, Chairman: 

The South, without justification, without cause, has inau- 
gurated civil war. Southern troops, with arms and money stolen 
from the Government, are marching upon the Federal Capital. 

The President of the United States, in the discharge of his 
duty, has called for volunteers to sustain the Government, and 
preserve the Union. 

This meeting has been called to respond to the President's 
Proclamation. 

When Liberty, which had fled from the Old World and 
founded a home upon the North American Continent, was as- 
sailed by the trained warriors of England, my grandfather joined 
the ranks of the minute men who rallied to her defence, and 
fought in many a bloody battle, to secure to himself and his pos- 
terity the blessings of freedom. Two of his sons fought by his 
side, and helped to lay, and cement with their own blood, the 
foundations upon which this Republic rests. 

With such an ancestry, and with a heart filled with the 
immortal memories which cluster round the American Union, 
brighten the pages of its history, and make sacred every thread 
woven into its starry banner, it would be impossible for me, when 
that Union is threatened with dismemberment, and the flag under 



which myifathers fought, is torn down and trailed in the dust by 
traitor hands, not to respond to my country's call, and assist to 
preserve the Union, and plant the Stars and Stripes upon every 
Fort, Arsenal, Dock-yard and Custom-house in the United States. 

It is for this purpose that I am here to-night — to pledge 
myself that if my services shall be needed, in camp or field, to 
sustain the Government and preserve the Union, they will be 
cheerfully given, and the blood which I inherited from patriot sires 
freely shed, to transmit to my children the blessings which I in- 
herited from the Fathers of the Republic. 

And here I take occasion to express my profound grief and 
shame, that one man in this community should so far forget his 
duty to his country, and so far dishonor the memory of his noble 
ancestors, as to be found upon the side of treason and rebellion. 
I am overwhelmed with astonishment and indignation to find 
that patriot blood should flow in traitor veins. 

You know, Mr. Chairman, that while I have always been a 
Republican, and annually deposited my vote for the Republican 
candidates, I have been in favor of conciliation and compromise. 
I was in favor of exhausting every peaceful remedy before re- 
sorting to the sword. As a member of the Legislature, and one of 
the commitee on Federal Relations, I recommended the division 
of the territories between the North and the South — the repeal 
of Personal Liberty Bills — the restoration of Fugitive Slaves — 
and stronger constitutional guarrantees for the protection of 
Southern interests and Southern institutions. I believe I did 
sink the partisan in the patriot, for I was willing to give up all 
the anticipated ^fruits of victory to secure peace to the country, 
and avert the horrors of civil war. 

You will ask, perhaps, why these measures were not adopted 
by Congress, and peace secured — Why the Territories were not 
divided, Personal Liberty Bills repealed, and the Constitution 



so amended as to make Northern interference with Slavery in the 
States, impossible. I answer, simply because those concessions 
were not sufficient to satisfy the South. The South demanded 
more— it wanted the entire possession and control of the Govern- 
ment, and it wanted to extend its institutions over all the Terri^ 
tories, and, if possible, into all the States of the Union. 

Some of you will remember, that in my first campaign speech 
last fall, I said that the question of Slavery was incidental and 
subordinate to another, a deeper and more important question. — 
I said that the contest in which we were then about to engage, 
was one for political power ; and that the real question for us to 
decide, vras, whether the North, Avith its tAventy millions of peo- 
ple, inheritors by an illustrious lineage of the rights and blessings 
of freedom, should possess and administer the Government, or 
whether the South, with its six millions, debased and brutalized 
by its contact with Slavery, should retain the power which it 
had possessed since the organization of the Government. That 
was the real question, as time has abundantly proved. 

Thirty years ago, Southern politicians saw with an evil and 
j'ealous eye, the North advancing in population, in wealth, and 
in all the elements of moral and material progress, with a rapid- 
ity which would soon leave them in a liopeless minority, and 
they looked forward with rage and desperation to the time when 
they would be compelled to yield the control of the Govern- 
ment, and follow where they had been accustomed to lead ; and 
they determined, when that day should arrive, to throw off 
their allegiance, and fire the temple at whose shrines they 
could no longer officiate. This is the reason why no compromise 
was made, no reconciliation elTected. This is the reason why 
the South turned thieves and traitors, and are endeavoring to 
destroy the best Government this side Heaven. 

The Federal Government, by its lopg forbearance, by its re- 



6 

luctauce to strike the first bloAv, even for its own preservation, 
has not only jeoparded its existence, but it has been driven to 
the very verge of irretrievable disgrace, and with all its reluc- 
tance to strike, it has not been able to restore those harmonious 
relations which this unexampled forbearance was intended to 
produce. The South desires no compromise, and has made no 
efibrts to preserve peace and maintain the integrity of the Union. 
The South, without justification, without cause, has voluntarily 
chosen war. Now, I say, let her have it — let her have it. And 
as the whistle of Eoderic Dhu covered the hills of Scotland with 
Clan Alpine's warriors, so let the thunder of cannon from 
Charleston that now reverberates over the land, call out a mil- 
lion men, and let them fall with the weight of an avalanche, 
and the swiftness of Heaven's own thunderbolts upon the traitors 
who have sought by treachery and theft, and by acts that would 
disgrace a savage, to overturn and destroy the Government. 
Let there be no flinching now. Let every man whose condition 
will possibly enable him to do so, let every man whose pulses 
beat in unison with the triumphant march of Liberty, let every 
man who would not live a coward and when he dies fill a coward's 
grave, buckle on liis armor, and win immortal honor by fighting 
in the defence of his country. 

The President has called for seventy-five thousand men. — 
Five times seventy-five thousand will be needed, and must be 
had, or else defeat will overwhelm those who are first in the 
field; and we shall suifer the burning, the blistering disgrace of 
letting the Federal Capital lall into the hands of the rebels. 

Whether Maryland is loyal or not, I^altimorc must be taken 
and held by troops from the Free States, and communication with 
Washington kept open at all hazards. Twenty-five thousand men 
will be needed for that service alone. Fifty thousand men should 
be concentrated at Washington. Fifty thousand more should 



march upon Richmond, and the blood of a thousand Virginians 
wash out the disgrace of placing a negro — the representa- 
tive of the Southern Confederacy — astride of the statue of Wash- 
ington. An army in diverging columns of a hundred thousand 
men should carry death and desolation over the cotton States; 
and the Ohio river, from Pittsburgh to Cairo, should bristle with 
one continuous line of bayonets, to stop supplies and starve the 
rebels into a surrender. The whole power of the Government 
should be used to crush out this unjustifiable, this unnatural re- 
bellion — and it should be accompanied with such an accumula- 
tion of horrors, that Treason will for ever stand aghast at the 
magnitude of its punishment, and History sicken as she writes 
the bloody record ! 

Come up, then, young men and old — Republicans and Dem- 
ocrats — Little Giants and Wide Awakes — come up as American 
citizens, and sustain the Government in this hour of its extrem- 
est peril. Let blood in rivers flow, and a hundred battle-fields 
be piled with the bodies of the slain ; but save the country, and 
preserve untarnished the Flag of the Union ! 

" Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe, but falls before us ; 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ! " 



I TRRfiRY OF CONGRESS 

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